


Marked

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Walking Yggdrasil [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asgardian Magic, F/M, Yggdrasil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9349889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: Apparently, the Norns had been right when they told Loki that there were things other than Thanos to be concerned about. Now he can actually see what they're referring to, and he was never the type to sit idle.





	1. What Is To Come

"What could be worse than Thanos?"

Loki sorely regretted requesting the meeting with the other Avengers. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips, aware of the mounting tension there, pain rising behind his eyes. Prodding at his memories only triggered more pain; he wasn't capable of absorbing the gravity of the Norns in their true glory. It was tempting to retreat into his bravado, telling everyone that _he_ was the monster to fear, that he was the one that they should be wary of, that he was stronger than he let on.

But Natasha ran a soothing hand over his back, rubbing it gently, and he managed to blink back tears that threatened to form.

"There are any number of awful things that could cause panic," he found himself mumbling. "The mad Titan was simply mortal, after all. The Norns are Destiny and Fate, and the trouble they hint at could be mythic in origin."

"So are we talking about Ragnarok?" Steve asked in concern.

Though he immediately regretted it because of the shooting pain in his head, Loki jerked his head up to gape at Steve. But of course he would read Norse mythology. Of course he would want to learn as much as he could of Asgardian culture. Of course he would try to understand everything and _fight._

"There are signs for that," Sam said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, lips pursed. "Not just in an internet meme kind of sense, but for real."

"I may access the Internet and correlate what is found there against the Norse Eddas and their tales of Ragnarok. I believe it is close to Asgardian tradition, considering that their culture had held yours to be their gods," Vision said, directly addressing Loki.

It was hard for him to think, and he could only nod weakly as he massaged his temples.

Wanda clucked sympathetically. "The magic backlash. Unfortunately, aspirin doesn't help it."

He couldn't bear the thought of his student feeling sorry for him, but it hurt too much to think of something cutting to say. Loki merely shut his eyes and let Natasha continue soothing his back. Her presence was comforting, a calming element he hadn't realized he needed.

"If it's the end of the world," Clint said slowly, "there's nowhere far enough I could send Laura and the kids." He sighed at the chorus of no's that greeted that statement, and shook his head. "Fine, then. If nobody minds me bringing them here? She thought the last safe house might be compromised, but there was nothing specific she could point to."

"What do you speak of?" Loki ground out, eyes still closed.

"My wife Laura," Clint said in a flat voice. "Former SHIELD intelligence agent, so she knows her shit. If she thinks it was compromised, it was compromised."

"Did Wanda look at the location?" Loki asked in a strained voice. Clint was married. He had children with his wife. He was the sort that would never betray such a bond. So there really _wasn't_ a romantic liaison with Natasha. He shouldn't have doubted her; it was really only himself that he truly doubted.

"Oh," he murmured, sounding surprised. They hadn't thought of that. "No, she didn't."

"I can go right away," Wanda said, rising from the conference table. "They will be safe, I will make sure of it."

"I trust you," Clint said. Loki couldn't hear any artifice in his tone.

This was what faith felt like. This was family. This was what Loki used to have, before he knew the truth of his origins.

The sensation gutted him, made him miss Frigga all the more. He didn't know why his grief was suddenly so sharp and spiteful, why he felt the loss so keenly.

Natasha leaned in close. "Something else?"

"Personal," he managed to whisper before another spike of pain in his temples made him nearly whimper in front of everyone. He couldn't recall ever feeling like this before.

"This is more than simple magic backlash," Wanda said, concern in her voice. It sounded closer than before, but Loki couldn't tell how close she was to him.

Pain spiked again, overwhelming his senses and sending him unconscious.

***

When Loki woke, a woman he didn't recognize was sitting in a comfortable chair beside his bed, reading a thick book. She had dark hair, and looked to be in her early forties. There were lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, as if she smiled often, and she was casually dressed in jeans and a loose T shirt that had a bullseye design on it. She looked over at him in concern when he stirred, and put a bookmark into the book, putting it on his nightstand. There were two glasses of water on it as well, and a pitcher; one was definitely hers, and one was likely for him.

"Hey. You've been out for three days."

Loki blinked at her. "I don't know you."

"No, you don't," she agreed easily. She was leaning over him and fluffing his pillow before he could even ask, a gentle curve to her lips that keenly reminded him of Frigga. "You were unconscious before I even arrived here. I'm Laura Barton," she said, sitting back down in her chair. "The others are in a tizzy researching everything they can, so I volunteered to sit in and look in on you."

"Why?" he asked, confused. Clint had said something about children, hadn't he? "There are other duties you likely have to do."

"Oh, yeah," she agreed easily, shrugging. "There's always something. But Nathaniel is napping right now," she said, nodding in the direction of a cot Loki hadn't even noticed in his room, "and Cooper and Lila are in the gym driving Vision crazy." At his blank look, Laura grinned. "He wanted to know what childcare was like. I figured he should get some practical experience."

"And you look over two sleeping people, getting to relax while still appearing saintly."

"I'm a mother, not stupid," Laura replied with tart amusement.

Oh, yes, it reminded Loki so much of Frigga. Was that a common motherly trait?

"I feel..." He paused, trying to find the right words to explain it. "Physically, I am unharmed. But my mind..." He frowned, not sure how he could explain it.

"Rattled? Exhausted? Feeling like it's stuffed with cotton?" she asked helpfully.

"Perhaps."

"Sure sign that you're overtired and need to take a break. What's the Asgardian equivalent of mental relaxation?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Loki replied warily.

Laura only sighed. "Just like Cooper," she muttered, shaking her head. "All right, you and I are getting up and out of here. Nathaniel will probably sleep for another hour or so before he tears through here like a demon on speed."

Loki blinked at her. "It doesn't trouble you that your son is a demon?"

She blinked back at him. "It's an expression?"

"You mortals are strange."

"So are you Asgardians," she replied wryly.

Loki shot her a sour look, but it didn't faze her in the slightest. Why were none of these mortals impressed with his greatness? He was taking great personal risk for them!

She hauled him to his feet, leaving him to marvel at the quiet strength she possessed. The wonder must have shown on his face, because she grinned. "I'm usually the one in charge of the kids and the farmhouse, all the land, all the errands, and maintaining our safety. Do you really think I'd be a softie by any means?"

He wanted to be surly with her, but she truly was helping him balance on his feet. "What is this farmhouse you speak of?"

"Where we were primarily living before. A couple of interruptions here and there when we thought the location was compromised. But for the most part, it was up to me to maintain security protocols on my own." She eyed the boy sleeping on the cot. "I have an alert set for when he wakes up. Cafeteria first, then I think one of the common rooms for us afterward."

"Whatever for?"

"Even surly magical demigods need time to relax, right? Your brother didn't have any idea, either, so I guess it's an Asgardian thing."

His heart seized and he nearly fell over onto Laura. "Thor is here?"

"What? Oh, no, I have no idea where he is. When I met him before, I mean." Her voice was brisk and no nonsense; Loki had the sense that Laura had little patience for social lies, and that she was treating him the same way she would her children. As insulting as it should have been, it was also comforting in a way.

Loki realized that he hadn't disavowed Thor as his brother with this woman. Before he could think of a tactful way to do so, she gave him a wry conspiratorial smile and started steering him out of his suite. "Not hard on the eyes, but really, the man has no common sense at all. I hope you're better in that arena than he is."

"I am the cleverer one between the two of us."

"Good. Stupid people annoy me."

He couldn't help but laugh, and her grin in return was friendly. As Laura had suspected, her son didn't wake even with his laughter. "I might be able to like you," Loki told her as they walked to the cafeteria. He tried to tell himself there was no disgrace in leaning on her for support, an arm around her shoulders. The Norns had done something to him. His strength was sapped. Magic demanded its sacrifice, and his vitality had been chosen.

Laura simply snorted. "Like it's such a chore."

"Emotions can be," he admitted.

That gave her pause. "Yeah," she agreed after a moment. "They can be."

He was very grateful that she didn't elaborate, or ask him to. He wasn't sure if he could have come up with an answer that didn't reveal more of the horrible _argr_ tainting his soul.

***

"Should I be afraid that my wife and the lying, mind-controlling bastard of my nightmares are getting along like white on rice?" Clint asked, frowning as he noticed Laura Barton and Loki sitting in one of the common areas.

"That's also the mind-controlling bastard that I have wrapped around my little finger," Natasha said mildly, not looking up from the book of magic that Wanda had given her. "Do you think this sigil here looks like the marking that was on his forehead?"

Clint frowned at her. "I try not to pay much attention to him. He's an ass."

"I don't have to like him to fuck him," Natasha replied, still keeping primary focus on the book.

"Shit, it's not like you don't have options."

"True. But he's the option I like best right now."

Sighing, Clint shook his head. "Okay, what aren't you telling me?"

She spun the book around and shoved it at Clint. "Put your feelings aside and think about this from a logical perspective."

He heaved another sigh, for a moment acting more like his son. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. Put on your big boy panties and act like a grown up," Natasha replied, a slight tilt to her lips. "You've gotten over the mind control thing."

"As far as I'm concerned. But I don't want him thinking Laura's fair game."

"She will gut him if he tries anything."

"Well, yeah, she's not stupid."

"So calm down, and focus for a minute. Then you can go put arrows in something to take your mind off of it," she added for good measure. That made him smile in appreciation, at least, so he grudgingly took the book from her.

After a moment, he put the book down. "It's close, but not quite the same as what was on his forehead. Like two sigils were painted there, one on top of the other, but the copier smudged the lines or something."

"That's what I thought it looked like, too."

"So what does this mean?"

"Not a clue," Natasha sighed. "We're going to have to ask him."

"How do you know he'll even tell the truth?"

"He'll tell _me."_ With confidence in her voice and posture, she grabbed the book back and marched over to Loki and Laura.

Laura waved her over as soon as she saw Natasha's purposeful stride. "Look at this!" she said in concern, pointing to the drawing that Loki was making. "He's not responding to me when I ask him what he's doing."

It was the smudged sigil that had been on his forehead.

Natasha stopped short behind Loki. "What is it?" she asked, only idle curiosity evident in her tone. "One of those adult coloring book drawings?"

Loki looked up, and there was a vacant and almost glazed look in his eyes. "I know the casting and the marking. I know the shape of what is to come."

"So what's to come?" she asked, head tilted slightly to the side.

"They are Eternal. They are unending."

"They."

"Baubles for the Norns are singularities created by the oldest beings in the galaxy, a means to control the forces that would tug it apart."

"So what does the drawing mean?"

"The name of that will come. Those Who Sit Above In Shadows."

"That's a mouthful," Natasha replied mildly. The startled gaze she shot Laura was anything but calm, however. "Is there another name?"

"None that I have knowledge of," Loki said, his voice still oddly hollow.

"How did you find out that one?"

"Time and Mind and Space. Touched by the Norns, a thread of their magic still twists inside of my mind. Or perhaps they speak to me."

"And this symbol?"

"To identify," Loki said, eyes sliding shut. Then, without warning, his body went limp in the chair and then began to shake in a grand mal seizure. Natasha and Laura dove to his side, keeping him from repeatedly striking his head on the floor or swallowing his tongue. Natasha ignored the pain of his teeth repeatedly grinding down into the fingers she shoved into his mouth, instead focusing on his color and the rasp of his breath. Laura had one wrist in hand, fingers against his pulse point, keeping track of the length of the seizure.

Clint had raced out of the room when Loki started seizing, and returned with Vision, phasing through the walls and floor from upstairs. "Wanda is in meditation and cannot be disturbed," he explained. Vision looked at Loki impassively, then knelt down so that he could place both hands on either side of his head. He murmured something in what sounded like Asgardian, and Loki's wild thrashing soon slowed down.

"What's going on?" Laura asked, shaken.

"I believe this is magical backlash," Vision said, still sounding unperturbed. His calm was downright eerie next to the others' concern. "Wanda would say that he is channeling power that is not his to control, but I don't believe Loki would actively seek this without a proper grounding circle. He stressed that point to Wanda repeatedly when beginning her studies."

"We were just talking," Laura agreed with a nod. "He was telling me about the Asgardian education system, whatever there is of it, and the kinds of subjects that he had to learn as a boy. The magic was from his mother."

Almost guilty, Clint glanced at Natasha. "So he wasn't trying to use magic just now."

"Not at all," Laura told them. "I was going to try to convince him to help me teach the kids languages and maybe help with math, since I have to go the home school route."

"I'm sorry—" Clint began with a sigh.

Laura waved him off. "Not your fault, and not the first time I've had to fill in the gaps that the dumbass education system left behind. He's not trying to do magic. So what the hell can _use_ him like he's a magical device in one of Cooper's video games?"

They all exchanged worried glances; they didn't know, but this couldn't be a good sign.

***

Wanda looked guilty when she sat next to Loki. "I think I did this," she said without preamble as soon as Loki woke up. "Talking with the Norns about future possibilities. Maybe about a child." She twisted her fingers together, appearing more like a child herself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for them to hurt you."

"I don't think it was them," Loki rasped. Behind her, Vision, Laura, Natasha, Clint, Steve, Sam and even Thor hovered.

Wait, _Thor?_

Loki startled badly as soon as he saw Thor, and it felt as though something broke painfully in his chest. He felt trapped, but was too weak to push himself away from the group of them.

Natasha sat down on the edge of his bed and brushed his hair away from his temples. It was an oddly affectionate and possessive gesture, one that threw him. Why would she do such a thing in front of everyone else?

"You said it was Those Who Sit Above In Shadows."

He frowned, fingers twitching against the blanket. His eyes skittered around, finally settling on her expectant expression. "I don't recall saying so," he said finally. "Nor do I know who they are. The names are not in any of the old texts."

"The symbol you said was theirs is in one of Wanda's books," Natasha said, the same quiet and patient tone he remembered from their time on Yggdrasil. Was he truly that fragile?

Apparently he was, because he needed her assistance to sit up, and the room swam dangerously.

Thor didn't seem pleased to see his weakness, but Loki was too exhausted to care about him seeing the _argr_ so plainly. Later, he would castigate himself thoroughly for revealing that weakness, for showing that he was not the dangerous adversary he had to be.

"I had tried to speak with the Norns before," Thor said heavily. "It left me weakened, but not like this. Those Who Sit Above In Shadows must be formidable indeed."

Loki looked up at him, blearily stunned. Was that actually praise?

"The book is an old one that Vis found for me," Wanda said softly, lifting the volume in question. "Most Roma traditions aren't written down. But this is an old one, possibly a personal Book of Shadows, because I don't remember many divination spells as a child. I didn't think..." Her voice faltered, and she dropped her eyes in contrite self recrimination. "It was supposed to be a scrying spell, not something that would harm anyone else."

"I think I was already attuned to this particular monstrosity," Loki rasped. "From walking Yggdrasil, from carrying the Time Stone, from conversing with the Norns. They said I was being reshaped. That there is a purpose for all things."

Wanda stepped forward, and to his amazement, she dropped beside him on the bed and threw her arms around him in a tight and protective hug. "I'm still sorry. I won't do this again, I promise. I won't put you in harm's way like this."

Awkwardly, Loki returned the hug. Perhaps it was a bit of amusement in Natasha's eyes, seeing his discomfort with the affection from the girl. He closed his eyes and remained silent for a moment, pondering her words. "Did you see anything good, at least?"

Her bitter laughter told him more than words could ever say. "I didn't understand what I saw."

"When I feel better, I can help you puzzle out the signs and riddles of your vision. It's an imperfect art, scrying, but sometimes there are ways to clarify its meaning."

The gratitude in her expression was humbling, as was the concern they all had for him. By the Roots and Branches, he was _wanted_ here.

"I could do a healing rune, perhaps?" Wanda offered hesitantly.

He understood that her faith in her magic was shaken now, and the childish bravado she had shown him before was gone. Nodding caused him to wince as a headache threatened to form, but Loki held still as she traced the rune on his forehead and murmured to appropriate activating spell. Natasha's presence at his side was soothing, and kept him from feeling panic as the spell took shape around him.

And then he _saw_ it, an odd thread of magic wound around him, not like the magic he associated with himself, not like Wanda's, not like the Norns'. He reached out in front of him and grasped it, pulling it tight between his hands. It drifted past the line of his vision, and _by the Roots of the Tree,_ there was a similar thread wound about Thor's throat as well.

Stumbling out of bed and tripping over the blankets, he snapped the thread in his hands and reached for Thor's. Whatever it was, it was _wrong_ and _foul_ and had to be gotten rid of. There was an outcry from the others as well as his own hysterical voice, but he was able to seize hold of the foreign thread and _yank_ on it just as Natasha and Wanda pulled him back, no doubt thinking he was seizing again.

The additional force of their pull served as an anchor, even though he didn't fully grasp the thread as tightly as he would have wanted, and it snapped between his hands as he landed in Natasha's lap.

Thor staggered back, a frown on his features, a hand reaching up toward his chest. "Brother?" he asked, confused.

Loki couldn't help but laugh, weak though it was. "They blinded me, but Wanda fixed it. I see what they never meant me to see." His laughter was hysterical but triumphant, and he could see the frayed threads in his hands begin to fade. He held them up for Wanda, not sure if she could see them. "I broke their hold. I will be no pawn for shadow creatures any longer."

Natasha brushed the hair from his temples again, concern etched on her features. She didn't say a word before looking over at Wanda. By her frown, Loki guessed that she couldn't see the frayed and disappearing threads of magic.

No matter. He was no fool, and he was clever.

There would be backlash for this act, but he would be prepared for it.

***  
***


	2. In The Runes

Loki supposed that there was some kind of superstition on Midgard about leaving a man alone after he was exposed to such awe-inspiring magicks. Someone was constantly with him, especially as he began to chart and draw some of the things he had seen or thought might refer to Those Who Sit Above In Shadows. His scribbles were mostly in Asgardian, his handwriting a crabbed, rushed and bastardized form of his usual elegant script. He had to write it all down, had to make sense of it, had to spread out the notes across his floor and rearrange them as the pattern emerged more clearly. He supposed he looked like a madman or one possessed to those that didn't understand. Wanda bit her lip and frowned uncertainly, not understanding the script or symbology. But that didn't matter; he could explain the staves in her language later, could craft something simpler as a way to show her how the _seidr_ and _galdr_ fit into the larger shape of magic.

This was fascinating and important, something that he had never been privy to before. Perhaps this was seeing the _ørlög_ of the _wyrd._

Every thread of life and action and fate extended outward from the primal plane set out by the Norns. It was fluid and could be changed, but affected everything and wove its way throughout the cosmos. Every decision could alter the course of the _ørlög._

 _You have a choice,_ Natasha kept telling him. _You have the ability to choose your future now. You don't have to be whatever you thought you had to be._

She might not understand magic, but she was quite capable of guessing at its rules.

Much of his writing seemed to circle around the rune _Sól,_ which he had always been so dismissive of as a boy. What use was it to learn about the sun when Asgard had none? Why bother focus on things only lesser worlds needed?

His recent years had introduced more abstract forms of the word sun, as well as the fact that some people considered souls to be like the sun or moon or stars, items to gravitate toward or around. And if that was the case, Natasha had become a sun for him of sorts, and it was her assurances that he was worthy of _something_ the Norns had planned that he definitely gravitated toward.

When she curled up at his side at night, falling asleep in the midst of his rants about the runes and the patterns between the threads of magic, Loki finally stopped speaking. He drew her fiery red hair between his fingers, drawing his hand back and letting the strands fall from his fingers like a waterfall.

"Sun is the light of the world; I bow to the divine decree," he recited, suddenly remembering the old rune poems that Frigga had him memorize as a boy.

The light of the world. Such a thing had to be allegorical, like the name Those Who Sit Above in Shadows. Those creatures would hide in the dark, pulling strings, avoiding the bright lights from the world. Were they the creeping things he had sensed when he fell through the Void? Were they the monsters Frigga had always warned him about?

He had certainly changed, acknowledging limits and knowing when it was time to stop pushing past them. The divine decree had to be the _ørlög._ He had never followed his before, had never wanted to bow to anything. Natasha would say that he was growing up, that he was becoming someone that his parents and the Norns could be proud of.

Natasha burrowed deeper into his warmth, an arm looping around his torso in a possessive manner. He could tell that she was slipping through a lighter stage of sleep, closer to waking than sleeping. That she could sleep at all with him was a sign of faith and trust, one Loki wasn't about to abuse. It was a startling change from the start of their adventure together.

"I love you," he murmured in Asgardian, then in the language of runes. Perhaps it could weave around her like a protective spell, perhaps it was nothing more than his own whimsy. She held a deep affection for him, perhaps it could even be the same love that he felt for her. Still, it almost didn't matter. In this moment, he could accept what she was able to give him, that she could be the Tsarina he needed and the Natasha he wanted, as well as the friend and ally he had to have to survive in Midgard. It didn't hurt to share her affections, and the seething, roiling emotions didn't bubble or burn inside of him. Perhaps eliminating that foreign thread of magic had gotten rid of a contaminating influence on him.

"What's that mean?" Natasha murmured sleepily.

"I love you," he repeated in English for her.

Her lips curled into a smile, and her arm around him tightened. "Good."

She didn't return the words, but her trust was harder to earn and he clearly had that at the moment. Loki continued to run his fingers through her hair, finding himself humming softly. It was a protective _galdralag,_ and he could almost see the spell settling onto her skin. His magic seemed to come more easily to him, without any effort at all. Had Those Who Sit Above In Shadows siphoned off his magic for their own nefarious purposes? Did they feed off the energy of the Asgardians?

If they did and eventually turned their attentions to Midgard, Natasha would likely survive the predations. No foreign threads of fate would attach to her, and would simply slide off the protection spell he had woven over her.

To his surprise, her eyes opened as he finished the spell. She shifted position to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, a gentle butterfly's touch. "You're different," she murmured against his skin. "Whatever that last seizure was, that magic you're scribbling like crazy – and don't think you're not explaining it to Wanda, because you _are_ – you settled into your skin by now. I can feel it. No trembling, no fear. You've got the best parts of Leikr incorporated into yourself."

"Is this a good thing?" Loki murmured. Didn't she like controlling a broken version of him?

Natasha gave him a sensual, secret smile as she straddled him. "Very much so."

"Do you think to reward me with your body?"

She snorted. "You had a _seizure._ After several of them. You might call yourself a god, but you have limits, Loki. I can hold you and touch you and kiss you, all of which you enjoy just as much." She ran her fingers through his hair, letting the pads brush down the nape of his neck. "Maybe even more, sometimes. You're so touch starved."

He looked at her, a troubled expression on his face. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No. There's something about touch in Asgardian culture, isn't there? A measure of closeness? And otherwise, there strictly is no touching, not even accidentally. I see the way you move, and it's very tightly controlled. Very nuanced."

Loki blinked in surprise. "You watch me that closely?" Something about that was pleasing.

She pulled back and smiled at him before kissing his forehead. "It's important, you know. To see how you move, how you react. Not just as the Black Widow, but as the Tsarina."

"And as Natasha?" he asked, realizing that she seemed to categorize all of her skill sets separately. He recalled from their time in the galaxy that she slipped through different masks and identities easily. Perhaps this was how she did it. Loki found the concept odd and disturbing, especially now that he felt more settled and less full of aimless rage.

Now her smile was a bit rueful. "Maybe."

"Because you cannot admit that you care," Loki guessed. Perhaps he saw into her as much as she saw him. Giving away even little clues and pieces of herself was a sign of trust, and there were so very few people in the entire galaxy that she trusted.

He was one of them. For all the magic in Yggdrasil, he never would have thought it would come to this when he approached her to come with him after the Stones.

She traced a line down from his forehead along the bridge of his nose, then down to his lips. Her thumb swiped across his lower lip, and she had a gentle, almost sad smile. "Maybe," she said after a moment, and flicked her eyes to him when he caught her wrist.

It felt almost like magic in her touch, as if she was trying to trace a rune onto his face. That was silly and impossible; she had no magic, and the Time Stone hadn't changed her so much to give her any. No, she was simply harder to kill now, ageless and hopefully deathless. She was like a super soldier now, like Steve and the Winter Soldier.

One day, she would have to watch at least half of her friends grow old and die. It would hurt her, a knife deep in her heart. The ache would bring her to her knees, and even thinking of the possibility now was generating a similar ache in Loki's chest. He knew that kind of loneliness, the rage that simmered just behind it.

Bringing her palm to his lips, he brushed a featherlight kiss against her skin. This tie between them, whatever name they would give the emotion, was tangled and complicated and stronger than he expected it to be.

"You and your people aren't tainted by the magic from Those Who Sit Above In Shadows. I don't know what it means yet."

Natasha ran her other hand down shoulder in a comforting caress. "You will."

"Such faith in my skill."

"You found them, didn't you? Now that you know they exist, you can find out what they want and why. It's all about finding their motivation. Then you have the lever to twist them with."

"As if it could be so simple."

"Even powerful people have the same motivations as unpowered ones," she said mildly. "And I know how to find and manipulate those motivations."

He breathed in deeply. Oh, yes, she certainly did. But she wasn't playing him now, and this tie between them wasn't a game. She was as honest with him as she knew how to be, which was quite the gift between a set of liars.

"Then I will find them. And we will lever them out of the way."

Natasha's smile carried a terrifying edge to it. "Absolutely."

***

Wanda sat crosslegged on the floor of Loki's suite, dressed in black leggings, black T shirt and red cardigan. Her fingernails and toenails both had that dark nail polish she favored, though her fingernail polish was chipped and in need of repair. She was holding a carton of beef lo mein and digging into it with chopsticks, the cheap kind that had to be broken and edges filed to remove any splinters. Her kohl-ringed eyes lifted from the carton to take in the spread sheets of paper all around her, and she chewed slowly and thoughtfully.

Loki was also barefoot, in indigo jeans and a forest green button down shirt that Natasha had gotten for him. It was soft and comforting, and he liked to think of it as a tie to her even if she wasn't present. Wanda had requested that Natasha go to her library; in the five years before Loki had arrived, she had studied briefly with Dr. Strange, Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina, Madelyne Pryor, Nico Minoru, and Shang-Chi. She had taken extensive notes and used some of the magic she learned from them, but for the most part had been content with her own skill set. "I know I've seen some of these symbols before, but I don't remember exactly where," she had said. "The kind of magic they did isn't exactly the same." Not needing to know what Loki was working on, Natasha had gone to look for the corresponding notes.

"I'm thinking," Wanda began, "that we're looking at different dimensions."

Blinking in surprise, Loki stared at her. "You say that so casually."

"All the magicians I studied with here and there had experience with other dimensions. Some of them are ruled by magic, I think. So, if these creatures you were talking about are from one of them, that could be why you never knew about them before."

He sat heavily on the floor beside her and took up a different carton with a frown. "I don't like this idea," he admitted.

"Because you didn't know of them?" she asked.

"Mostly. Partly," he amended, frowning a little deeper. "There are a number of magicks I was not overly familiar with. But to feel so blinded by another being? I had thought Thanos was bad enough before, and he couldn't curb my magic."

Chewing thoughtfully, Wanda looked at him in curiosity. "Should we try to walk Yggdrasil to talk to Norns about that?"

Loki shot her a scornful look. "That's rather like a child running to its mother to solve its problems. We have more than enough clues to solve this puzzle for ourselves."

"You think so? My training is haphazard. A month here or there. And even learning your magic? I can't even say that it's gone very far."

He glared at her. "Not for lack of trying on my part."

She waved her hand with the chopsticks about in a negligent wave. "You were seizing left and right. I wonder if the spells we were doing interfered with whatever Those Who Sit Above In Shadows were doing. The one blood spell was to absorb magic, after all—"

"That's what I was missing!" Loki said suddenly, cutting her off. He nearly dropped his carton as he lunged across the floor to a scattering of papers covered in glyphs and runes. "I'd forgotten about that damned spell that started this!"

Wanda put aside her food more carefully and then knee-walked her way to Loki's side. "So what are we looking at?"

"You recall what I taught you of the _ørlög,_ yes? The lines of fate, the basis of the weavings that create the _wyrd?"_

"That it wasn't your forte," she supplied with a shrug. "We were doing more of the _spá,_ remember. That's closer to what I do with my magic."

"The things I have seen, the threads that I severed and the shape of the runes in the magic that I almost understood with perfect clarity... I was looking at the _wyrd._ I could not comprehend it outside of the Norns' realm without the Time Gem, but I caught a glimpse of it. I was trying to write it out, but I was missing a piece."

"So?"

"So?!" Loki huffed, distressed that she couldn't follow his logic. "That damned blood magic draining spell attempted to sever my _ørlög._ It touched off a series of catastrophic changes in the _wyrd_ as it applied to me."

"Oka-a-y," she said slowly, still not following.

"What happens to spells you cast over another?" he asked, an irritated edge to his voice clearly indicating that he was questioning her intelligence.

Wanda bristled and pointed a finger at his face, tendrils of her red magic coiling around it. "You augment its effects. It becomes stronger—" She cut herself off and dropped her hand, eyes wide as the magic bled from her. "Oh."

"Exactly. I reacted badly, yes. Anyone would have. But the sheer magnitude of what was done made no sense for whatever that idiot mortal caster could do. But this... I had forgotten about that, and the stave I thought it was..."

Loki called over the fountain pen he had been using, and corrected the runes and staves that had been scrawled across the pages. He was still scribbling a few minutes when Natasha arrived with Wanda's notebooks. Ink was on his fingers and the carpet, and some of the pages had puncture marks from the force of his writing. Wanda was pointing out some blotches of his prior writing, either questioning or comparing it to what she had learned before.

"I guess you two didn't need me to get this stuff after all," Natasha remarked dryly.

"Those Who Sit Above In Shadows are bleeding Asgardians dry," Loki told her, a crazed look in his eyes. "No Midgardians as far as I can tell, but that's what's being done. Those spells—" He eyed the notebooks in her hand and then greedily snatched them up. "I see what they meant now, the Norns, the thing I was shaped to be and the thing I am becoming. I can almost see the shape of the _wyrd,_ and it's just so... There are no words, Natasha, none."

Natasha reached back over and grabbed the notebooks back. "You still need to eat."

"I need to find—" he began, reaching for the notebooks.

Wanda twitched her fingers and her magic shot them up to the ceiling and held them fast. "If you collapse again, we're all lost."

Scowling at them both, Loki pulled his lips back in a snarl. "I am no paltry child to toy with. I have the means and the knowledge to save this wretched realm!"

"Which is all well and good," Natasha said firmly, pushing on his shoulders. He fell back onto his haunches and looked up in surprise. "But I can do that and you can't stop me. So eat something and take care of yourself until you can."

"This is a horrible reality," Loki grumbled. "I should find one of those other dimensions and escape there. I had seen a number of more favorable ones."

She smiled at him sweetly. "But none of them are the right ones, are they?"

He shot her a surly look, then snatched up his discarded carton of Chinese food. "I am a god," he told her petulantly.

"And I am your Tsarina," she reminded him. "Should I mark you as my property to remind you?" she asked in a haughty tone.

Something shifted in his eyes. "Markings."

"What is it?" Wanda asked, frowning.

"The staves and runes and lines, all of them fit a pattern. A marking of a kind. I need to find it," he said, putting down the carton again.

"Eat first," Natasha said firmly in her Tsarina voice. "You're ready to fall over, and this is not productive if you can't think straight."

Loki shot her a look that was at once resentful and frustrated. "There's too much to do!"

"Maybe so. But you can wait ten minutes while you eat," she said mildly, taking up her own carton from where she had left it behind. "Clint, Laura and the kids are with Sam and Vision in the gardens. I think they're playing hide and seek with Scott."

"That's just cruel," Wanda chuckled.

"Must we talk of inane things?" Loki snapped around a mouthful of food.

"Yes. Because if chance words we say trigger ideas, think of what a whole conversation could do," Natasha told him firmly. "It's called free association."

"I simply need to work."

"I can appreciate the need to constantly work and study," Natasha said with a sigh, "but this is ridiculous and going to kill you."

"I am a _god._ Mortal concerns won't kill me." He fell silent as she shot him a pointed look, then looked at the bed where he had convalesced several times already.

"I didn't die," he grumbled, stabbing at his food with chopsticks in a surly manner.

"That was a near thing," Natasha replied. "And silly me, I'd like to actually keep you around for a while longer."

Loki looked up abruptly, an expression of wonder and hope on his face. "Truly?"

"Of course. I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

"Then I shall endeavor to continue being of use to you."

Natasha smiled at him. "I appreciate that."

Wanda rolled her eyes at them both. "And Sam said he didn't understand how you two worked."

"His sarcasm is quite different," Natasha agreed with a nod. "He's nice. We should fix him up with someone. Most of the people I knew were SHIELD agents, though. I don't think they would do for him. He needs someone with priorities outside of saving the world."

"How about we save the world first?" Loki said, interrupting Wanda.

"We'll plot later," Wanda assured Natasha with a smile. "His Highness here might have some ideas for saving the world."

Loki shot her an unamused look. "Why do I surround myself with mortals that have no concept of how awe inspiring I am?"

"Keeps you honest," Wanda told him flatly. "Reminds me of Pietro, a little," she said, her smile taking on a sad edge. "Confidence bordering on arrogance. But sometimes, a stilling hand is enough to help you succeed."

He snorted and took another overlarge mouthful of food. After swallowing it down in a painful lump, he pointed at her with the chopsticks. "Yours is hardly a stilling hand."

"I wasn't referring to my own," Wanda replied with a teasing smile, glancing at Natasha. "The _eminence grise_ that you refer to as your Tsarina. Fitting, I suppose, since she's a Romanoff." She laughed at Natasha's eye roll and Loki's glower. "Oh, it's not a big deal with me, what pet names you have for each other. It's cute. Like I should get one for Vis. But it feels odd, too, so I haven't."

Natasha shot Loki an amused glance. "If it happens, it happens. The biggest thing we have to worry about is figuring out how dangerous these spells are."

"Terribly, I would guess," Wanda murmured.

Loki frowned slightly, thinking. "I'm missing something. Perhaps something in the staves..."

"Listen. The runes are complicated, you said," Natasha murmured, patting his arm in support. "It could be one meaning or another, or the arrangement of them, or how they're placed in sequence, or maybe it has nothing to do with runes and everything to do with timing. But you know they're there. You know what their magic is like."

He looked at Wanda. "Had you seen it? When I broke the threads?"

She shook her head. "I didn't even know what you were doing."

"So I'm the only one that can stop them," he mused. Then the enormity of his words crashed into him. "By the Tree, if they realize it..."

"You'll find them first," Natasha insisted. "If anything, your self interest would demand it."

There was no point to even be upset with her words, not when they were true. He glanced at the scores of notes scattered all over his quarters. Somewhere in that chaotic mess was a clue to unlocking the identity of Those Who Sit Above In Shadows. He just had to find the key sooner rather than later.

***

Loki took his silver knife and sat on the roof of the facility again, feeling hollow and uncertain. This magic wasn't his forte, and he felt like a child tugging at Frigga's skirts begging for her help in getting his studying done. Closing his eyes, he tried to listen to the music of the air, the lilting way the wind moved around him. _Listen to the way the realm tries to speak to you,_ Frigga used to say. _There are ways it reaches out to those sensitive in the ways of magic, to those that can manipulate it. There is power out there, spirits and beings in the realm. More than just the wights. Some don't even have names for what they are..._

She had known all of the _ørlögs_ of the _wyrd,_ so she must have seen the hints of Those Who Sit Above In Shadows. She must have known something was luring within the fabric of space and time, reaching through the branches of Yggdrasil from the Void.

When he had fallen through the Void, the fractured bits of memory and mind and knowledge hadn't been able to make total sense of what he had seen. What if they hadn't been stars but eyes and grasping hands, gaping mouths to devour the magic twisted within the very fiber of his being? What if they thought he had been cast out and ready to be absorbed?

His eyes shot open when he felt a piercing pain in his left palm and arm. Without realizing it, he had carved the _sól_ deeply into his palm, and doubled it on his arm. The doubled rune on his arm seemed almost like a shielding spell, worked with his blood and the whispers of air of Midgard. Almost in a trance, he took the grit of the rooftop and worked it into the wounds, sealing the dirt and earth into his blood. Hissing, he blew out his breath, and focused on the lines and shapes of the rune. Blood magic, cementing the vague thoughts as he let his mind drift, as he thought of the shape of the _wyrd,_ the webbing and weaving that the Norns had let him glimpse. For a moment he had understood it all, had seen the possibilities within the weaving, the potential of thousands of tiny choices, each fracturing out into different realities, different dimensions, different personalities.

Loki lifted the blood from his wound so it wouldn't drop to the rooftop, the brilliant green of his magic taking on a rusty red glow. It looked close to Wanda's bright scarlet, if a bit toned down in hue. He saw something, a shape taking hold, eyes and a gaping maw, grasping fingers, the shape of a figure hungering for something more.

_I see you, Little One. Did you think you could remove my marking? Did you think you could erase the ties that bind you to us? Did you think your baby's skill could be our undoing?_

Swallowing down the spike of fear rising in his throat, Loki merely grinned. "You're afraid," he said aloud. The smile he gave them was as sharp as a razor's edge, a mirror to Natasha's deadly smile as she brought her Black Widow skills to bear.

The gaping maw faltered for a moment, but that was more than enough.

If it was afraid, that meant Natasha was right. Loki could hurt Those Who Sit Above In Shadow, could stop whatever it was that they did. Thanos had only wanted to kill, but this being seemed to want to feast on magic and the lives of others. A vampire, to use the parlance of popular fiction on this realm.

As quick as he felt triumphant, it bled out to fear of his own. _He hadn't grounded himself._ Not planning to actually cast anything, Loki hadn't prepared. He had come with the knife mostly as a meditation focus, not as a means to do blood magic. This left him open to the realm, to the grasping hands of Those Who Sit Above In Shadow. And those hands were reaching through the bubble of magic holding his blood, a window into whatever dimension they came from. The ghostly hands were trying to widen that hole, desperate to feed, to consume, to devour whole, to take on everything as fuel for their otherworldly works.

Scarlet red magic tore apart the circle of his blood and pulled him backward and away from the fissure between universes. The markings on his left hand and arm flared white hot, as brilliant as burning magnesium, blinding him. Loki could hear Wanda's panicked Sokovian behind him, could imagine the messy finger gestures of her magic, the wild gestures as she ripped apart the working he hadn't realized he was making.

"Are you _stupid?!"_ she cried in English when his blood finally collapsed to the rooftop in clots. "Or is it just a death wish to impress the rest of us?"

He turned to follow the sound of her voice; he was still blinded by the light emanating from his arm, and apparently it still gave out light strong enough to make her squeak in dismay. "I did not intend to do a working," he said simply.

Wanda said something that was no doubt derogatory in Sokovian. "As if meditation would lead to anything else with all of this on your mind," she said, closing her hand over his forearm. The healing rune she sketched with her other hand channeled her scarlet magic and into his skin. "I felt something wrong in the air," she said tersely as he felt his skin knit back together, closing the white-bright light inside of him. "Even Thor felt it, though he didn't know what he felt. He said his hammer spoke to him."

Loki snorted. "And what did the hammer say?"

"Danger was near," Wanda replied. "I could have told him that."

His laughter was hollow. "I did not intend to do a working," he repeated. "I meant to ponder the _wyrd,_ what the Norns told me in dreams, the meaning of the threads I severed."

"You made someone dangerous very angry," she said quietly, both hands now over his forearm. "Should I call in the other magicians I tried to study with?"

Something in him quailed at that, and he gently disengaged himself from her grasp. He blinked at the livid scarlet scar on his pale skin, _sól_ on his palm and the doubled _sól_ on his forearm. Loki touched it with a finger, but the flesh wasn't tender to the touch. If anything, it felt warm, as if the magic of the rune was sealed into his skin.

The light was inside the scar. The white-bright and blinding light, the thing that Those Who Sit Above In Shadows could not tolerate.

He tilted his arm to her view, taking in her confusion. "I think we already have the means to defeat them," he said slowly. "If I can understand what this means."

The Norns had said he was changing. He was becoming something else. He was _growing,_ but that didn't mean that he understood what was happening to him.

As if she realized how adrift he suddenly felt, Wanda wrapped her arms around him in a tight and protective hug. Rather than push her away with nasty words as he would have done months ago, Loki wrapped his other arm around her and shut his eyes.

He was changing, he was marked, and somehow he was again the pivot to change the scope of the _wyrd._ Oh, how Frigga must have been laughing in the afterworld, or how amused the Norns had to be. They had crafted his fate and let him run loose, and he had moved precisely where they thought he would go.

Adrift as he was, he wasn't alone. And in that, he could at least find solace.

The End


End file.
